VETERANS: Homeless problem persists in Riverside County

Army veteran Michael Porter, 24, center, and his wife, Heather, 25, and daughters Avery, 3, left, and Delilah, 4, right, were homeless until a government program helped them find an apartment in January. The Porters live in Hemet.

HOMELESS VETERANS CENSUS

OFF THE STREETS

Various programs and services worked to find homes for more than 400 Riverside County veterans in 2013-2014.

Standard housing: 188

Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing: 122

Housing with continuing care: 61

Section 8 voucher (government rental assistance): 21

Emergency rehousing for newly homeless: 19

Total: 411

Last June, Riverside County officials vowed to end veteran homelessness in the county within a year.

As that deadline approaches, a January survey shows that while the county has moved many veterans off the streets, the effort has done little to reduce the number who still need housing.

County officials say 411 veterans found permanent housing through Veterans Assistance Leadership of Riverside County – VALOR – a multi-agency program launched in June 2013.

Last year’s estimate of veterans living on the street was 181. The count in January found 173 such veterans. When those living in emergency shelters and transitional housing were added in, the total homeless veteran count actually went up, from 285 last year to 290.

“Based on this number, we know we have more to do,” said Jill Kowalski, homeless programs manager for Riverside County’s Department of Social Services. “We need to intensify our efforts. The veterans we counted in our unsheltered count are veterans that are on the street. They’re living in encampments and under overpasses. They’re our most difficult to reach. Fifty-seven percent are the chronically homeless.”

Eddie Estrada, program director for the U.S. Vets complex in Moreno Valleycq, said the numbers surprised him. He believes more struggling veterans come to the Inland Empire from Los Angeles and Orange counties because of the lower cost of living, but find they still can’t make it.

“In time, they start hitting the streets,” he said. “What you’re seeing is a new group of veterans cycling into the county.”

U.S. Vets provides housing and employment assistance to veterans. It has a dormitory but also provides assistance for those on the edge of becoming homeless, Estrada said.

Of the 411 veterans helped through the VALOR program, he said, “we housed close to 200 at our site. There has been an impact as far as an increase in the services we’ve provided. Is it directly related to the (VALOR) initiative, absolutely.”

Last year, U.S. Housing and Urban Development announced a joint effort with the Veterans Administration to eliminate veteran homelessness by 2015. It injected additional money into the existing Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing – VASH. Riverside County received slightly more than $600,000 in the form of housing vouchers. At the time, officials estimated they would be able to house an additional 70 veterans, bringing the anticipated total to 385. The 411 figure exceeds that. Agencies working under the VALOR banner help funnel the VASH vouchers to veterans who that need them.

FINDING HELP

Michael Porter, 24, said the voucher program got him and his family off the street and into an apartment in Hemet. Porter, who served in the Army from 2008 to 2012 and completed a tour in Afghanistan, said he, his wife and their daughters, ages 3 and 4, spent a year in the Hemet area living with friends and relatives. Sometimes they had only their Dodge Dakota as a home.

“It’s only a two-door,” Porter said, “but it has a small back seat. We had to let the kids sleep in there and we kind of slept in the bed of the truck.”

Porter said he first tried to find work in Texas, where he had been stationed at Fort Hood, but the family eventually returned to Hemet, where he and his wife both attended high school. He applied for jobs at warehouses, freighting operations, even fast food restaurants.

“I put in over 200 applications,” he said. “I don’t think there’s a place I didn’t apply. I went on a couple of interviews, but nothing panned out. I was really getting frustrated. A lot of places said, ‘We hire veterans,’ but it just wasn’t happening.”

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